Spring classic 5K race recap and other updates

Thank you all again for your support last week. By way of an update, Ari is still feeling a bit under the weather but is back home and on the mend. If you want the full story direct from the source, you can check out his blog post here.

Ragnar-arians!

A few months back, I signed up for what I’m pretty sure was my first 5K in 4 years. I generally find it hard to justify dropping $40+ on less than 30 minutes of exercise. But there was some peer pressure involved and I decided to sign up a couple of months ago, figuring it would be a good test to see if the speed training I’ve been doing would pay off in a shorter race. I’m going to spoil the end of the story by saying that I hit the fastest splits I’ve ever managed in a race and finished in 21:45 (a PR for sure!), averaging exactly 7-minute miles and coming in 34th out of 2,252 female racers. While I’m really proud of my time, this race didn’t feel great and here’s what I think happened. I’m going to entitle this next section…

Struggle city.

How NOT to run a 5K!

Definitely plan your race on a busy, stressful weekend: Friday and Saturday nights of this weekend were my family’s annual Passover seders, which are SO much fun but they involve late nights, wine, and heavy food.

Be sure not to drink enough water before the race: Passover food is not only heavy but it’s also really salty, and Sunday morning I was too groggy to be focused on hydrating as much as I should have been. All of a sudden, the race was starting and my mouth was so dry and sticky I don’t think I swallowed once during the 22-ish long minutes I was running.

Be sure to freak out as much as possible before the race starts: On top of everything else, the fact that I was in shape and the conditions were perfect led me to a full-on internal freak out about having to run this thing super duper fast.

Start cold and go out too fast: Despite the fact that I wasn’t feeling awesome and hadn’t warmed up at all, I still got really excited and ran my first mile as if I was feeling 100% (6:38). Positive splits FTW…

So! It worked out ok in the end. And the race was really fun–it’s actually part of a series of 5Ks on a relatively flat course starting and ending near Central Square. Super extra fun bonuses on this one–lots of friends at the start and finish lines, my brother came out to cheer with his cowbell (thanks, Ari!) and my friend K ran her first race ever! Such a rockstar!!!

I actually ended up going for an easy 5 miler later in the day since I hadn’t gotten my long run in yet, and that felt great. It was my first time doing two runs in a day! Also, I think this is supposed to be something you do when you’re training for a Ragnar…? Three weeks and counting (eek!)